Seen on Screen – Co-Geeking

Dungeons & Dinners: Entertaining at the Emerald Enclave

November 12, 2026November 8, 2026ErikLeave a comment

This month we’re recreating some meals from Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Last time, we put together some of the food that filled our heroes’ plates at the beginning of their adventure.

Today’s spread is mostly inspired by the dishes served at the Emerald Enclave, where Edgin and company plan out the castle-infiltrating, corpse-questioning, dragon-hoard-pilfering middle part of their adventure.

To round out the somewhat eclectic snacking choices of the Enclave, we’ve added tea and some berry crumb pie from Holga’s reunion with her ex, Marlamin. Here we munch our way through the middle part of our heroes’ story.

The menu

Cucumber slices
Nuts
Passionfruit, apricots, and grapes
Asparagus spears
Puff pastry knots
Tea
Blueberry crumb pie

Most of today’s food was inspired by the odd assortment of edibles on offer on the table in the Emerald Enclave in the scene when Edgin, Holga, and Simon are making their pitch to recruit Doric to the team.

It was a bit tricky to work out exactly what foods the scene was dressed with. With a little experimentation we worked out that the golden-brown sticks Holga tries and rejects (for not being potato-based, no doubt) are strips of puff pastry tied into knots and baked.

DnD HaT Screencaps Emerald Table — screencap from Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: Holga, Edgin, Simon, and Doric at a table at the Emerald Enclave

Another dish on the table holds sliced cucumbers (or possibly zucchini, but we went with cucumbers). A third has a mix of various fruits; we ended up picking apricots, passionfruit, and dark grapes to make a pleasing assortment, along with some nuts and asparagus spears. (We really wonder just what the Emerald Enclave cooks think they are doing with some of this stuff!)

The table our adventurers gather at has some sort of a ceramic chafing dish in the center: steam is gently rising, and there seem to be ashes both at the bottom and upper levels of the device. Lacking custom pottery, our cucumber bowl with its similar glazing will have to do. Two round leaves—you can just see the veins—function as underlays of sorts, one dark green and the other dark red(ish).

Later we can just see two shapely glass bottles, one clear and the other dark green. Fortuitously, our iced tea pitcher has vaguely similar lines as the clear one.

DnD HaT Screencaps Emerald Collage Sm — screencaps from Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: Simon and Doric (above) and Simon and Edgin (below) at the bar at the Emerald Enclave

Marlamin’s homey snack of tea and pie was a little easier to figure out.

DnD HaT Screencaps Marlamins Tea Cakes — screencap from Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: Marlamin’s tea cakes

A blueberry crumb pie makes a nice approximation of his tea cakes, which we topped with apricot halves and clusters of grapes.

Like the humble beginnings photoshoot, we’ve taken liberties in details but attempted to follow the spirit of the scenes.

Images: Photos by Eppu Jensen. Screencaps from the movie Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

Geeks eat, too! In Second Breakfast we talk about food with geeky connections and maybe make some of our own. Yum!

Dungeons & Dinners: Humble Beginnings

November 5, 2026November 1, 2026ErikLeave a comment

What do adventurers eat (apart from bread and cheese or lembas and stewed rabbit)? We’re heading back to the kitchen this month to recreate some meals from the movie Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, which we enjoyed not only for its joyful celebration of role-playing tropes but also for its visual design, including the food.

For today’s meal we present: humble beginnings.

This modest repast brings together the simple, hearty foods that fill our heroes’ early years, including Edgin’s “poverty” soup and Holga’s favorite baked potatoes (don’t interrupt her when she’s eating her potatoes!). To go with them, we have some roast pork, rye rolls, cheese, apples, and beer. Roll up your stats and join us at level 1!

The menu

Baked potato
“Poverty” soup
Roasted meat
Half-rye rolls
Cheese
Apples
Beer

Potatoes are an obvious choice—Holga’s potatoes are a recurring theme in the movie. The rest of today’s food comes from the flashback scenes as Edgin is narrating his tragic backstory to the Absolution council.

We have a pureed tomato and carrot soup to match the orangey soup Edgin eats with his wife when they can’t afford anything better.

DnD HaT Screencaps Poverty Soup Cropped — screencap from Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: Edgin’s soup

The roasted meat (pork in our case) and rustic rolls are inspired by the meal Edgin shares with Holga (when he learns not to take the last potato). Our rolls are a half-wheat half-rye version of Irish soda bread.

DnD HaT Screencaps Poverty Potato — screencap from Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: baby Kira and Edgin seated at a table

Pinterest Holga at Edgins — screencap from Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: Holga eating at Edgin’s

Edgin and Zia’s dishes are ceramics and wood, plain but of good quality. While not an exact match, we set out a metal knife and an eating stick that approximate Edgin and Zia’s beautiful metal implements.

The other elements figure in the background of Edgin’s home life or tavern scenes: ceramic and wooden dishware, a crock of utensils, baskets, macrame, homey fabrics, and even a small flowering potted plant.

DnD HaT Screencaps Poverty Home Collage Sm — screencap from Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: at Edgin and Zia’s home with baby Kira (above) and after Zia’s passing (below)

We finished our staging with a worn piece of dark green leather and a few pieces of plain linen for a little more of an old-timey feel. In (pseudo-)European settings, apples are a staple to give more color, so we’ve included some here, too, plus a photogenic chunk of cheese.

Images: Photos by Eppu Jensen. Screencaps from the movie Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves except Holga eating at Edgin’s via Pinterest.

Geeks eat, too! In Second Breakfast we talk about food with geeky connections and maybe make some of our own. Yum!

Updated Competence Porn Viewing List

September 9, 2026August 23, 2026Eppu3 Comments

It’s over three years since I posted my Competence Porn Viewing List. Time for an update, I think. 🙂 I’ve both added and dropped a few items.

As I mentioned in my original post, there is quite a bit of variance in the use of the term competence porn. Here, as a refresher, is what I mean by it:

Typically has multiple competent, intelligent characters of different skills or areas of expertise working together, often towards a fairly big goal.
Involves complex problem-solving. Can but need not include a heist.
It helps if women are being awesome,
and/or, it helps if the characters are learning to work together.
It needs to be fun or rewarding on some level. (This is highly subjective. YMMV.)

I’ll first reveal my favorites and then give my reasoning why each of the works made it onto my listing.

In alphabetical order, here is my short viewing list:

The Avengers / Avengers Assemble
Black Panther
Charlie’s Angels (2019)
Elementary (2012-2019)
Jurassic World: Dominion
Leverage (2008-2012)
The Martian
Ocean’s Eight
Passengers
Rogue One
Wonder Woman

And a back-up list with works that fulfill some criteria, fail others, but that I nevertheless like enough:

Black Widow
Captain Marvel
Godzilla (2014, directed by Gareth Edwards)
Miss Marple (the series with Joan Hickson)
Murdoch Mysteries
Oppenheimer

The Avengers / Avengers Assemble

(According to IMDB, Marvel has started to call this movie Avengers Assemble. Right then.)

Too few women getting too little screen time, otherwise a fantastic learning-to-work-together story. It also helps that the threat is mostly external (i.e., no infighting).

Black Panther

Like I said in our random thoughts post on Black Panther, it’s outright GLORIOUS to see that WOMEN ARE PEOPLE in their own right, with their own interior lives. And such a spread of different women, too, each doing their thing according to their interests and skills. So many intelligent people (on both sides of the law), with plenty of problems to solve.

Still remains the best, IMO, among the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies. RIP, Mr. Boseman.

Charlie’s Angels

I find the protagonist Elena (played by Naomi Scott) very irritating; on the other hand, Jane and Sabina (Ella Balinska’s and Kristen Stewart’s characters) plus Boz and Bosley (Elizabeth Banks and Djimon Hounsou) are great. Stewart has a bad rep, I guess, and I guess primarily from the Twilight movies (the only things I have seen her in), but on the basis of her performance here I’d suggest she does have skills but was just badly directed in that series. Anyway, it’s a learning to work together story, which I like a lot, and all the women down to the side characters are awesome.

Elementary (2012-2019)

IMDB Elementary s2 e12 The Diabolical Kind

A modernized version of Sherlock Holmes set loose in New York City with a gender-flipper Watson. Both Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu are fantastic as the detective duo, and the smart NYPD cast, Captain Gregson and Detective Bell (played by Aidan Quinn and Jon Michael Hill), also contribute their fair share. The Ms. Hudson and Moriarty versions were also interesting, but all in all there are too few women. (Still half of the population, hello?) Nevertheless, the astounding cases, quality acting, and scenes of real NYC in all its glitter and grime continue to keep my interest despite some less successful story lines.

Jurassic World: Dominion

Finally a significant portion of women in a mixed cast! (And not everyone is glaringly white.) And everyone gets to be awesome—not to mention terrified of the dinos—regardless of what’s in their pants, as they should. So much working together. No heist, but escaping alive counts as problem-solving, too!

Leverage (2008-2012)

Yes, yes, yes—ticks all the boxes despite some unevenness in the writing. If only it didn’t have Nate nor the actor, Timothy Hutton; I’m so fed up with wallow-y man pain (and, whoo boy, does he wallow) with or without alcohol, but it’s infinitely worse with.

The three youngsters should’ve had a series of their own; THAT would’ve been great, and I would throw money at it!

The Martian

No heist, but: People working together? Check. Women being awesome? Check. Competent characters? A very big check. Extra bonus for wholesome spud nutrition. (The only minus comes from women amounting to about a third of the more significant roles. It’s better than 10 or 20 %, but come on.)

Ocean’s Eight

Yes, yes, YES! (Despite Sandra Bullock, Anne Hathaway, and Helena Bonham Carter, who all are far from favorites of mine.) Cate Blanchett, Mindy Kaling, and Rihanna were fabulous. The heist is simply staggering, and it helps it’s also a learning to work together story in part.

Passengers

I resisted seeing Passengers for a long time (and probably would never have seen it if I hadn’t received the disc from a relative’s estate), because the marketing materials at the time of its release made it sound digustingly creepy, coercive, and unsafe. Turns out, they really did lie through their teeth.

The main protagonist’s behavior is creepy at one point, that is true, but he owns up to his actions and doesn’t get to escape the consequences, which makes a difference. The actual characters are all competent and intelligent (while the AI-driven ones aren’t even supposed to). They certainly end up working together towards a big goal, learning as they go. Complex issues are indeed at play. Beautiful space imagery and other visuals. So, there are enough rewarding features to include Passengers on my list for now.

Rogue One

Although in the beginning we only see a glimpse of Jyn Erso’s childhood and we hear little of how she lived afterwards, it’s clear that she can handle herself, backwards and blindfolded if needs be. I enjoy seeing just how the Rogue One group slowly comes together to run their desperate mission. It needs more women, though.

Rogue One is clearly the least fun of my six competence porn stories, which makes it really hard to put into words why it’s on my list. I just know that it is.

Wonder Woman

There are some plotholes and/or weaknesses I’d rather do without, but the learning to work together aspect of the story nevertheless makes the movie work for me. And—need I say it?—SO many awesome women. I could spend more time seeing Amazon action on Themyscira!

Images via IMDB: The Avengers. Black Panther. Charlie’s Angels. Elementary (s. 2, ep. 12, “The Diabolical Kind”). Leverage. The Martian. Ocean’s Eight. Passengers. Rogue One. Wonder Woman.

In Seen on Screen, we discuss movies and television shows of interest.

Murderbot Season One Is Over

July 14, 2025July 20, 2025Eppu

So, the first season of Murderbot tv adaptation ended. I have thoughts and feelings! But: more importantly, the announcement was already made via multiple channels that the series has been renewed for season two!

Tumblr mysticalalleycat Premium Quality Entertainment

Yaaaaay!

Tumblr improbabledreams900 Murderbot S1E10 Smile

I will want to binge the whole series through one more time at least and ruminate on some of the changes before I can say anything sensible.

For those interested who might’ve missed it, Reactor has published a free Perihelion story by Martha Wells.

Images: Premium quality entertainment via mysticalalleycat on Tumblr. Smile via improbabledreams900 on Tumblr.

This post has been edited to correct a typo.

In Seen on Screen, we discuss movies and television shows of interest.

Representation Chart: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase 4

March 31, 2025September 15, 2024Erik

We all know that the representation of people of different genders and races is imbalanced in popular media, but sometimes putting it into visual form can help make the imbalance clear. Here’s a chart of the Phase 4 movies of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe (Black Widow, Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Eternals, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love and Thunder, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever)

Characters included

(Characters are listed in the first movie in which they qualify for inclusion under the rules given below. Multiple versions of the same character played by the same actor are not counted separately.)

Black Widow: Natasha Romanof / Black Widow, Melina, Yelena Bolova, Alexei / Red Guardian, Antonia Dreykov / Taskmaster, Dreykov
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings: Xu Wenwu, Ying Li, Xu Shang-Chi, Katy, Razor Fist, Xu Xialing, Trevor Slattery, Ying Nan
Eternals: Sersi, Ikaris, Ajak, Phastos, Makkari, Druig, Thena, Gilgamesh, Kingo, Sprite, Dane Whitman
Spider-Man: No Way Home: Peter Parker / Spider-Man 1, MJ Watson, J. Jonah Jameson, May Parker, “Happy” Hogan, Ned Leeds, “Flash” Thompson, Stephen Strange, Otto Octavius / Doctor Octopus, Norman Osborne / Green Goblin, Flint Marko / Sandman, Curtis Connors / Lizard, Max Dillon / Electro, Peter Parker / Spider-Man 2, Peter Parker / Spider-Man 3
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness: America Chavez, Christine Palmer, Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch
Thor: Love and Thunder: Gorr, Thor, Jane Foster / Thor, Valkyrie, Axl, Zeus
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever: Shuri, Namor, Namora, Attuma, Ramonda, Okoye, Nakia, M-Baku, Everett Ross, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Riri Williams / Ironheart

Rules

In the interests of clarity, here’s the rules I’m following for who to include and where to place them:

I only count characters portrayed by an actor who appears in person on screen in more or less recognizable form (i.e. performances that are entirely CG, prosthetic, puppet, or voice do not count).
The judgment of which characters are significant enough to include is unavoidably subjective, but I generally include characters who have on-screen dialogue, who appear in more than one scene, and who are named on-screen (including nicknames, code names, etc.)
For human characters that can be reasonably clearly identified, I use the race and gender of the character.
For non-human characters or characters whose identity cannot be clearly determined, I use the race and gender of the actor.
I use four simplified categories for race and two for gender. Because human variety is much more complicated and diverse than this, there will inevitably be examples that don’t fit. I put such cases where they seem least inappropriate, or, if no existing option is adequate, give them their own separate categories.
“White” and “Black” are as conventionally defined in modern Western society. “Asian” means East, Central, or South Asian. “Indigenous” encompasses indigenous peoples of the Americas, Oceania, Australia, and other indigenous peoples from around the world.
There are many ethnic and gender categories that are relevant to questions of representation that are not covered here. There are also other kinds of diversity that are equally important for representation that are not covered here. A schematic view like this can never be perfect, but it is a place to start.

Corrections and suggestions welcome.

Image: Diagram by Erik Jensen

In Seen on Screen, we discuss movies and television shows of interest.

Random Thoughts on The Marvels

November 27, 2023November 26, 2023Erik

In no particular order. Spoiler warnings in effect.

Erik’s random thoughts:

The beginning and ending of this movie felt rushed. The beginning had to get the audience caught up on a bunch of streaming shows that not everyone has seen. The ending felt like it ran out of time to properly wrap up both story elements and emotional beats. As ridiculous and entertaining as the musical number on Aladna was, maybe a minute or two of that runtime could have been better spent on other parts of the movie.
Even though we have watched most of the relevant streaming shows (we’ve seen WandaVision and Ms. Marvel; we gave up on Secret Invasion after they fridged their third woman in as many episodes), I still felt as though I was missing out on some backstory. It’s like there’s half a movie we all missed somewhere along the way.
Iman Vellani is fantastic as Kamala Khan / Ms. Marvel, and she plays brilliantly off both Brie Larson and Teyonah Parris. Carol Danvers may be drivingf this movie’s story, but Kamala is its big, goofy, awkwardly earnest teenaged heart.
I think I counted two white men with speaking roles—three at a stretch if you include the stinger (and not getting into complicated questions about South Asian identities). At the same time, the movie doesn’t make any kind of issue about gender or race; people are just people. We’ve come a long way from the blazing white maleness of Iron Man, even from movies like Black Panther and Captain Marvel which showcased the diversity of their representation and made it a feature of the movie. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is better for reaching a place where a movie full of people who aren’t white men is unremarkable.
With Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor: Ragnarok, and now The Marvels, the MCU is fully committing to the idea that space is big, colorful, weird, and often kind of silly, and I love it.
It was great to see the heroes find their strength not by force of will or emotional epiphany but with practice, and especially by practicing together.
Having flerken kittens tentacle-eat people as an evacuation strategy was already pretty funny, but setting it to a song from Cats was comedy genius.

Eppu’s random thoughts:

It’s too bad that I’ve never read any Carol Danvers stories. It seems there’s a lot of potential in the character—or a lot of comic book storylines that could’ve been tapped—but for some reason she hasn’t gotten another movie for herself; hardly any time at all, in fact, even in the movies that she has been in.
Like MCU’s Peter Parker (Tom Holland), the new Ms. Marvel Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) actually feels like a teenager. Good job writing and acting that aspect. (So good, in fact, that we almost gave up on Ms. Marvel the series.) Also Khan’s mother Muneeba (Zenobia Shroff) is a treasure!
It’s DELIGHTFUL that we had a proper training montage! I was so satisfied to see how exactly the Marvels figured out how to take advantage of their inadvertent swapping-places-snafu, even to the extent of tagging in and out while juggling.
I guess it’s an indication of how few women I’m used to seeing in the MCU that I kept being astonished at how many female characters we got not only to see but to hear. (“She got lines! And she got lines, too!”)
Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau felt the most one-dimensional of the three protagonists. Apart from still suffering from Auntie Carol abandoning her in her childhood, what did she have going on in her life? Not much, as I recall. (Well, work, but don’t they all have that.)
In the MCU, there’s a distinct testosterone-and-big-guns strain (e.g., the Avengers and Iron Man movies), another that’s kookier but mostly sticks with humans (Ant-Man, Doctor Strange), and a third that’s waaaay out there (Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor: Ragnarok). I used to think there’s room for all kinds of takes, from serious to silly, but at least in The Marvels the different veins seem almost to quarrel. The result is a mix where the various styles pull in different directions and don’t quite cohere. I would’ve wanted to see a higher quality, more polished movie. Perhaps the writers are still recuperating from the cumulative effects of the pandemic and the Hollywood writer’s strike. (I know I haven’t bounced back all the way yet, and I didn’t even have to strike.)

Image: Screenshot from The Marvels via IMDb

In Seen on Screen, we discuss movies and television shows of interest.

Star Wars: A Personal Reflection

May 1, 2023March 5, 2023Erik

Star Wars Day is coming soon (May the Fourth be with you!), so I’ve been thinking about how I got into that universe. My route in was a bit odd.

I’m a little bit too young to have been caught up by the original movies. I wasn’t even born yet for the first one. I vaguely remember when The Empire Strikes Back was a thing. Return of the Jedi is the first movie trailer I can actually remember seeing on tv. Even if I had been old enough to go to the movies, though, I wouldn’t have gone to see Star Wars then. It just wasn’t a thing I was interested in.

That doesn’t mean I wasn’t aware of Star Wars. Star Wars merchandise was all over my childhood. Friends had Star Wars lunchboxes and t-shirts. I saw the posters and the toys. Before I was reading on my own, I could recognize Darth Vader and Yoda. Some of the neighborhood kids staged a recreation of a scene from Return of the Jedi. (As the youngest of the group, I was cast as an Ewok. I had no idea what that meant, but all it required me to to was run around and scream unintelligibly, which was about the limit of my acting ability at that age.)

Star Wars lunch box (not mine). Photograph by jeffisageek via Flickr under Creative Commons

When I did discover science fiction, it wasn’t Star Wars but old reruns of the original Star Trek that lit up my young brain. I was completely hooked on Star Trek and, with the stubborn, stupid loyalty of the very young, decided that there was only room in my life for one Star franchise. For years I scoffed at the Star Wars memorabilia around me and snootily dismissed anyone else’s interest in the movies.

I was nearly in junior high before I finally decided to give Star Wars a try. Oddly enough, though, my first experience of Star Wars was not with the movies themselves. In my school library I found a set of picture books that told the story of the original trilogy movies (the only movies there were at the time) illustrated with stills from the films. My memory of the books is hazy, but at a best guess they were The Star Wars Storybook, The Empire Strikes Back Storybook, and the Return of the Jedi Storybook. I decided to give them a shot.

To my surprise, I enjoyed them, enough to hop on my bike, ride over to the local video rental shop, and check out the movies themselves. It was a weird experience. In a sense, I felt like I had always known these stories. I certainly couldn’t remember a time when I hadn’t known that there were heroes named Luke and Leia who fought a villain in a black helmet while accompanied by a couple of shiny droids. Reading the books filled in the details of a story that already felt familiar. By the time I actually saw Star Wars on screen, I knew who the characters were and what was going to happen. Watching those movies for the first time already felt like revisiting old friends.

Weirdly, one thing that wasn’t spoiled for me until I read the books was the Skywalker family tree. I can still remember the shock of finding out that Darth Vader was Luke’s father and then that Leia was his sister. That may be hard to believe in today’s world of fan sites and social media, but I made it through more than a decade of knowing who those characters were without knowing how they were related. Somehow, in all the years of my childhood, I never heard any of my friends who were into Star Wars put on a deep voice and say “Luke, I am you father.”

Star Wars has a special place in modern pop culture because it is special. It is one of the few stories we all know, even if we’ve never seen it. Whether you love it or not, and however you may feel about the prequel and sequel trilogies or any of the vast outpouring of other media in the Star Wars universe, it’s a story that we all have our own stories about.

In Seen on Screen, we discuss movies and television shows of interest.

A Competence Porn Viewing List

April 26, 2023April 16, 2023Eppu2 Comments

The other day, fueled by our discussion on what to watch after dinner, I started musing about a certain mood of mine and what connects the works I gravitate towards when in that mood. I landed on the term competence porn without realizing it is an existing term. (There’s even a Wikipedia article on competence porn.)

In alphabetical order, here is my short viewing list:

Charlie’s Angels (2019)
Elementary
Leverage
Ocean’s Eight
Rogue One
Wonder Woman

And a back-up list with works that fulfill some criteria, fail others, but that I nevertheless often like to watch when in that mood of mine:

Black Widow
Captain Marvel
Miss Marple (the series with Joan Hickson)
Murdoch Mysteries
Star Wars VII-IX (specifically Rey’s storyline)

There seems to be surprisingly much variance in the use of the term competence porn, so rather than dissect the alternatives, here is what I mean by it:

Typically has multiple competent, intelligent characters of different skills or areas of expertise working together, often towards a fairly big goal.
Involves complex problem-solving. Can but need not include a heist.
It helps if women are being awesome,
and/or, it helps if the characters are learning to work together.
It needs to be fun on some level. (Maybe?)

There’s a somewhat nebulous aspect I haven’t yet been able to quite define for myself. For example, on the surface, the action flick Gunpowder Milkshake fills the above requirements—it has multiple competent and intelligent characters, lots of problem-solving, women being awesome, and learning to work together, and yet I cannot count it as competence porn for my purposes. I guess it’s an aspect of fun? Or a lack of despair / despondency / dejection / melancholy / gloom?

Anyway, I’ll talk a little about why I’ve placed each of the works above onto my viewing list.

1. Charlie’s Angels

2. Elementary (2012-2019)

3. Leverage (2008-2012)

The three youngsters should’ve had a series of their own; THAT would’ve been great, and I would throw money at it!

4. Ocean’s Eight

5. Rogue One

Rogue One is clearly the least fun of my six competence porn stories, which makes it really hard to put into words why it’s on my list. I just know that it is.

6. Wonder Woman

Do you have a competence porn viewing or reading list? If so, I’d like to hear yours.

Images via IMDB: Charlie’s Angels. Elementary (s. 2, ep. 12, “The Diabolical Kind”). Leverage. Ocean’s Eight. Rogue One. Wonder Woman.

In Seen on Screen, we discuss movies and television shows of interest.

Mandip Gill and Jodie Whittaker Pushed for Doctor Who Romance

December 14, 2022November 13, 2022Eppu1 Comment

This fall we’ve worked on catching up on Doctor Who, including some reading. Apparently, the romantic signals between Yaz and the Doctor essentially came from the actors, Mandip Gill and Jodie Whittaker, after they saw some fan speculation in social media.

Intriguing! I have often wondered how much say actors typically have over their characters, but I guess there isn’t a typical situation. At least on the basis of movie and series documentaries, it really seems to be up to each individual showrunner / writer / director how much creative control they’re willing to hand over to anyone else.

As I don’t read fan fic of any kind, this development was surprising to me. It was played nicely, though—subtle, not a hammer to the head (like some other stories I could point to).

Anyway; delighted to finally have a female Doctor! I’m looking forward to what writer Russel T. Davies and actor Ncuti Gatwa have in store for the fifteenth Doctor.

Image by BBC via Bleeding Cool

In Seen on Screen, we discuss movies and television shows of interest.